5 Steps to a Better Audit
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- The audit
landscape is changing.
As more major
food retailers like Wal-Mart
join the Global Food
Safety Initiative, or GFSI,
more facilities must be audited
to GFSI-approved standards.
Changing standards affect
every part of your audit,
including the
pest management portion.
Orkin experts Dr. Ron Harrison
and Dr. Zia Siddiqi
teach there are five
steps to a successful audit
in this changing landscape.
- The first step
to a successful audit
is to ensure that
you have a written
Integrated Pest Management,
or IPM program.
The components of
a written IPM program
really are two-fold.
First of all,
what the
pest management company
or the pest professional
is going to be doing
in reference to
what pest they're targeting,
what exclusion methods
they're actually doing,
what recommendations
they're going to provide
to the facility.
But second of all,
then, in this partnership,
the facility itself needs
to clearly have written out
what they're going to be doing
in reference to
how often they communicate,
what sanitation issues
they're going to be doing,
so it's a partnership
of both the
pest management professional
and the facility.
And if it's
clearly written out,
then everyone is
able to do their part.
The second step,
which is extremely important,
is documentation.
And what we mean by that
is that everything after this
written document is put out,
is clearly articulated,
meaning
anything that's going on
in that facility
is understood.
What pests are seen,
what products are used,
how often actually
visits are occurring,
and that documentation
really involves both
the pest control professional
as well as the facility.
They're documenting
what's happening.
So a successful audit,
therefore, an auditor
will come in and pull that up
and know what's
happening in that facility,
rather than just someone
saying, "I think I saw that."
So complete documentation
is essential to
a successful audit.
- Another key
document requirement
is the
pesticide application data.
Not only that we need
pesticide application data
who applied,
when applied,
where it was applied,
but also need to support
it with the product label
and MSDS,
Materiel Safety Data Sheet.
And these need to be current,
and for the product we applied
has to be in the log book
for the audit to conform.
- A new
documentation requirement
is evidence of training
for all individuals
involved in the IPM program.
- Training is an integral
part to successful safety.
Most auditors require,
at least once a year,
a training program to be
put on inside the facility,
and pest control professionals
can provide that
for the facility.
Of course,
the pest control professional
also needs the training,
but just across the board,
sometimes it's new
material they need to know,
or just reviewing things
that they maybe
slipped and already forgotten.
The third step
that's really important
to making sure
an audit is successful
relates to observation
of what's going
on in the facility.
So there's two things
we want to pay attention to.
First of all,
sanitation issues
that may be attracting
or impacting food
safety inside your facility.
But second of all,
also observing any type of
pest that may be there as well.
- Auditors want to make sure
you're doing more than
just observing pest issues.
They want to see that you've
taken responsible actions
and modified your IPM program
based on your observations.
- Let's say for example,
that a building
has traps on the outside
and the auditing criteria
in the previous standards
would say
"place trap every 50 feet."
Well, I put
my traps every 50 feet,
but I'm not really
catching anything,
or maybe I'm catching more.
So now I need to
look at my monitoring data
and I can adjust the
distance between the traps
and the service frequency
based on what I'm finding.
For example,
if on the south side
there is no rodent activity
and I've got ten traps there,
maybe I can reduce that
down to five or four or three
but I still need
to have some protection.
But the key here
is that this decision
has to be based on
what my findings are,
what my
monitoring data reveals,
and then I take the decision.
So first I need
to do bench marking
and have
some historical data
before I go and change my
pest management strategy.
- The fourth step
to a successful audit
is pest trend analysis.
- In doing an analysis,
what we really want to know
is what's
happening to the pests
inside or
outside of the facility,
meaning are
they on the increase,
or are they on the decrease?
The only way to
do that is to do counts.
And we count
two different things.
First of all,
live pest sightings.
So how many mice
are actually being seen?
Or how many cockroaches?
Or how many ants?
And we want
to keep track of that,
usually on a weekly basis,
so that we know is it on the
increase or on the decrease?
And we ought to
do this over many years
so we can,
even seasonally
sometimes pests
become a problem.
Second of all,
are signs of pests.
So we may look at droppings,
cast skins, sputum, rub marks,
all of those things
are indicators
that pests are there.
So we don't just
have to have live insects
to be able to look at
the trends that are going on,
we can look at
things they leave behind.
- Typically,
pest trend analysis
needs to be reviewed
on a quarterly basis.
Certainly, the data is captured
every time the
service is being done,
data is available,
but I think as a partnership
between the
pest management provider,
the pest
management service provider,
and the facility management
a quarterly
review is very critical.
- The fifth step
to successful audit
is the
annual facility assessment.
What's most important
in the annual assessment
is ensuring that
what's going on now
is going to continue.
And just like all of us
have an annual physical,
it's the same type of thing.
Inside that facility,
how are things going
and what's the future?
So you kind of think back,
okay, is the
IPM program as it ought to be?
Are we documenting
the way we ought to do?
What about the
observing of the pests
and the trend analysis?
All four of those components
will be evaluated
in an annual assessment
to make sure that everything
is working exactly as it should
to make sure
that the food is safe.
- By following these five steps
you can ensure your facility
is better positioned to face
the next food safety audit.